ABSTRACT
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, visualizations became commonplace in public communications to help people make sense of the world and the reasons behind government-imposed restrictions. Though the adult population were the main target of these messages, children were affected by restrictions through not being able to see friends and virtual schooling. However, through these daily models and visualizations, the pandemic response provided a way for children to understand what data scientists really do and provided new routes for engagement with STEM subjects. In this paper, we describe the development of an interactive and accessible visualization tool to be used in workshops for children to explain computational modeling of diseases, in particular COVID-19. We detail our design decisions based on approaches evidenced to be effective and engaging such as unplugged activities and interactivity. We share reflections and learnings from delivering these workshops to 140 children and assess their effectiveness. © 2023 Owner/Author.
ABSTRACT
Mental disorders in the young adult population are becoming more frequent, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This has led to the need to find new ways to adapt to therapeutic methods, offering greater attractiveness for this age range, and in many studies, it has been reported that this can be achieved thanks to video games. In this work, a controller design for video games that allows to obtain some of the most relevant biological signals of the relationship between the physiological state and the mental state of the user is proposed. An accessible and non-invasive instrument was built, in the form of a video game controller, to make measurements of heart rate and the galvanic response of the skin, two physiological variables that play a vital role in determining a person’s emotional state, that allows, in turn, to play video games that are designed to be able to perform actions based on the measurements of biosignals, such as modifying the difficulty, improving the user experience, etc. Making use of two biosignal sensors (photoplethysmography and galvanic skin response), the controller is developed to offer non-invasive biofeedback while playing computer video games, which provides an effective approach to developing interactive and customizable diagnostic and therapeutic psychological tools. This work, which involves the unification of various ideas and fields, could mean an advance in the field of the development of digital alternatives for therapies related to mental health, as well as a tool that allows a greater approach on the part of the community to which it is focused. This may mean that, in future developments, there is greater cohesion and a greater boom in treatments for people considered young adults. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic imposes a tremendous burden upon society. Several studies have documented stressors and fears of COVID-19 for adult populations, but few studies pay attention to the COVID-19 stressors on children and adolescents. Assessing the stressors of COVID-19 on children and adolescents can provide the basis for interventions to bring children and adolescents' mental health "out of the shadows."Entering the Era of "Big Data,"the psychological state can be assessed through integrative analysis of data. This study adopted a whole-group sampling method. After a new round of the COVID-19 epidemic caused by imported cases in Jiangsu and Fujian provinces of China, self-report questionnaires were sent to children and adolescents aged 10-18 years. 1815 valid questionnaires were collected. Data analysis was performed using SPSS and AMOS software (version 26). To revise and test the reliability and validity of the COVID-19 stressors scale for children and adolescents, as well as to investigate the differences in stressors between rural and urban based on Big-Data Mining. The results of this study indicate that the revised COVID-19 stressors scale, which includes a four-factor model of disease stressors, information stressors, measure stressors, and environmental stressors, has good reliability and validity for children and adolescents aged 10-18 years in a Chinese context. Big data-based demographic analysis showed that children and adolescents living in urban areas were generally less stressed about the COVID-19 epidemic than in rural areas. © 2022 Owner/Author.
ABSTRACT
Identifying and understanding the hesitancy degree of public COVID-19 vaccine in emergency may be helpful to the dissemination of vaccine-related public health information. Through a survey among the adult population of Chinese mainland (N = 1080) after the COVID-19 vaccine was approved for mass vaccination, it is found that although more than 80% of the public (87.8%) have a low hesitancy attitude towards COVID-19 vaccine, a considerable number of people still have a medium hesitancy and a high hesitancy attitude towards COVID-19 vaccine (the middle hesitancy rate is 9.8% and the high hesitancy rate is 2.4%). By multiple logistic regression, the subjective and objective knowledge levels of medium-high hesitancy group and low hesitancy group in COVID-19 vaccine were compared. The results showed that there were significant differences in subjective and objective knowledge levels between medium-high hesitancy group and low-hesitancy group in COVID-19 vaccine. Compared with those with low hesitancy, those with medium and high hesitancy have lower subjective knowledge level and objective knowledge level. The influence of subjective knowledge level on public vaccine hesitancy is significantly greater than that of objective knowledge. In addition, through multiple linear regression, the study found that the information channel had a significant impact on the public's subjective and objective knowledge. Receiving vaccine information from television, web pages, health professionals, health departments can promote subjective knowledge and objective knowledge, while receiving vaccine information from family and friends reduces subjective knowledge and objective knowledge. Considering the geographical location of the population in this study, the research results in this paper cannot be extended to the public in other countries. However, the method used in this paper is helpful for researchers to understand the hesitancy degree of COVID-19 vaccines in other places and its relationship with the public knowledge level of COVID-19 vaccines. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
As the percentage of the older adults population increases worldwide, both the risk of social isolation of the older adults and the shortage of nursing care personnel have become major issues. To address these issues, we have developed a recreational program, the scenario-type robot-assisted recreation, to promote communication among the older adults in aged care facilities. While the burden of the facility staff increases due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we improved the robot operation interface, developed a system to support the operation of this activity by the facility staff from a remote location, and developed a system to realize communication with remote family members, in order to smoothly operate this recreational activity by the facility staff by themselves. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic represents a major crisis for governments and populations. The public's risk perceptions, knowledge, and behaviors are key factors that play a vital role in the transmission of infectious diseases. Our scoping review aims to map the early evidence on risk perceptions, knowledge, and behaviors of general and high-risk adult populations towards COVID-19. Methods: A systematic scoping review was conducted of peer-reviewed articles in five databases on studies conducted during the early stages of COVID-19. Thirty-one studies meeting the inclusion criteria were appraised and analyzed. Results: The levels of risk perceptions, knowledge, and behaviors towards COVID-19 were moderate to high in both general and high-risk adult populations. Adults were knowledgeable about preventive behaviors. Our review identified hand-washing and avoiding crowded places as dominant preventive behaviors. Being a female, older, more educated, and living in urban areas was associated with better knowledge of COVID-19 and appropriate preventive behaviors. Conclusion: This review offers a first understanding of risk perceptions, knowledge and behaviors of adult populations during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.